earticle

영어

Texts and icons are used to deliver the safety and health information on pesticide labels. This study surveyed the standards or guidelines regarding the presentation formats of texts and icons used in pesticides. Also, the text and icon formats being used in the 50 pesticide products in Korea were investigated in the aspects of size, font (texts only), color. From the guideline survey, it was found that while the guidelines for the text fonts and colors in pesticides were suggested, there was no detailed guidelines about the text size. For the icon presentation, it was regulated that the icon size for the pesticides should be larger than 7mmx7mm, and this size was equivalent to the size when the reading distance of 28 ㎝ was applied to other two guidelines. From the sample survey of the 50 pesticides, it was found that the small text size being used in the 50 pesticides was 1mm (3pt), and this size was considered to be very difficult to be read, particularly by old people. The minimum size of the texts for the toxicity of the pesticide, the very important safety information, was found to be 1.5 mm, which is considered to be very uncomfortable to be read. The size of icons were varied from 2 to 12 mm, and the total average size was 4.6 mm. The 149 icons from a total 187 icons (80%) were smaller than the icon presentation guideline (7mmx7mm), and the reason for the small icon size might be the small area of the label of the pesticides. Thus, more detailed guidelines for the text size and more practical guidelines for the size of icons are required.